Easy Speech and Language Ideas

Friday, July 22, 2016

I think I can safely say that summer is the time that rekindles my love for what I do. It also highlights my appreciation for the flexibility of having my own practice. Instead of packing my suitcases and headed off to the next trip (hopefully that happens in September), the last days of June are spent with my planning team, sitting on the floor of my office trying to think up the most awesome ways to make summer groups functional, interactive, and most importantly FUN. As part of my self diagnosed ADD I absolutely hate to be confined to the clinic, so I try to incorporate as many outdoor activities as possible. Summer groups have been sooooo much fun thus far! The little ones have been having a blast and really building their language skills and it's such a beautiful thing to watch them shine within the group setting. My favorite group activity so far has been our community helpers day with our Language Building.

Just before summer started most of the little ones in this group were working individually on community helpers vocabulary, as well as responding to "who" questions. To start the group session we reviewed the community helpers worksheet from Black Sheep Press, and the little ones got a quite a surprise when some of these helpers showed up one by one at the clinic.

The policeman was clearly an undercover speechie, since he took everyone's worksheet and asked them to point to the policeman, asked them to find the different parts on his bike and shout them out...it was amazing.

Just when they thought it couldn't get any better, a huge firetruck came around the corner, complete with 3 real life firemen. They got to see and label all the different parts of the firetruck, climb on, hear the siren...it was perfect. This speechie was on cloud 9.

I am so grateful to the members of the Barbados Fire Service and the Royal Barbados Police Force for helping make this happen. It was truly an amazing experience, and language learning opportunity.

Thursday, April 7, 2016

I've discovered a love for baking. My pinterest page is filled with the most delicious looking cakes, breads, muffins and all sorts of dough filled goodness. I even made the investment and bought a kitchenaid stand mixer a few weeks ago. Now I can't stay out of the kitchen (or the gym for that matter...sigh). It has become a bit therapeutic for me as well. If I have a bad day, I bake. My neighbors and friends are quite happy with this new hobby.

My love has also been rekindled for AAC. Don't get me wrong I never stopped using it in my practice; there were just some periods when it all felt a bit overwhelming... However it's important to note as a therapist that when you stop having fun with AAC your clients will as well. So I started having fun with it again. My AAC goals moved away from being focused primarily on choosing specific language/ vocab targets, and became more about fitting those targets into clients' interests.
So we started going on treasure hunts, and having afternoon tea....and Baking...yes we started baking.

When I first introduced the concept of AAC to an older client about 3 years ago her response was quite a lackluster one. Actually it was more like BLEH! And to be honest I don't blame her. In her shoes I would have had that reaction too. It was boring, it was something new to learn, it wasn't motivating. All I was thinking of then was "Hey, I'm giving you a voice (sounds familiar?), you should want to use it, right?" Wrong! It wasn't working. We tried a few other things and well...bleh! Then one day I introduced her to pinterest on her iPad, and at that moment the heavens opened up, a light shone down, and I had opened the gates of technology. I followed her, she followed me and she became a "pinmaster" (3.9k pins and counting) Believe it or not Pinterest is one of the greatest forms of communication. I got to learn so much about her interests, aspirations, skills, travels, through this medium. I taught her how to categorize her ideas and findings into boards, homework assignments were being completed, and magic happened. I saw a new motivation appear....I also saw a shared love for food!!

I tiptoed in very hesitantly over a few sessions with the "touchchat" app. Slowly introducing it to talk about some of our findings on pinterest, then expanding to other ideas. In this case it was received well. Then I said "let's use it to bake!" and her eyes lit up.

After which we worked on navigation of the app to talk about the ingredients and directions for the recipe, and made a shopping list for the family. It was easy to navigate through 1/2 teaspoons and 1/4 cups of ingredients using the app, and I also programmed a separate page called "baking actions", specific to baking activities.

The next session was baking day and the highlight of our therapy. I showed up wearing an apron with iPad in one hand and a whisk in the other, ready for some AAC baking action.

She took the lead as head baker and supervisor, using the device to give directions, and ensure accurate measurements (as well as to ensure I didn't mix up salt for sugar *hide face*). I mixed, beat, stirred, and poured away under the best instruction.

There was also great fun in licking the batter from the bowl. Yumm!

Our hard work was definitely worth it, since her willingness to independently use the device to initiate and communicate was amazing, plus the finished product was on point :).

So the answer to the title question is Love. Love is baking delicious goodies, while effectively using AAC for functional awesomeness!

Wednesday, June 10, 2015

I am a huge fan of Scribblenauts. I am absolutely fascinated by the fact that you can type in pretty much anything and they create it instantly and can spend way too much time playing it at home in therapy with my clients. I love the fact that it works on so many language goals, critical thinking and problem solving skills, making inferences, and everything else you want it to do. When I saw a level show up as an "adjective level" I was over the moon.

#win

My dilemma came when a little one showed up on Monday demanding Scribblenauts for his artic therapy. Seriously they always want me to be creative on the spot! Anyway I thought for a bit and came up with the photos below to work on his "sh" sound.

Honestly I had to thank him for this one, because we have never had so much fun in Artic Therapy. We had great sentence level productions with the "chef on the ship", the "shell that fell on the shark," the "angry shark that attacked the chef" (and killed him.....sorry it got a little violent). He was able to think of his own "sh" words and silly scenarios and we really targeted those sounds.

After this session I was so excited to use it all through the week, both in artic therapy and in cycles at single word level. We made pictures for multisyllabic words, velars, clusters, everything. Now I'm hooked. Another fave was my "farm in the forest." The frog in the picture was actually a farmer who got attacked by the evil fairy and got turned into this with the magic wand (not my fault).

So I'm loving it. Check it out and use it for articulation & Phono therapy in the free play level. Let me know how it goes!

Sunday, May 31, 2015

It has been a while since I've done an app review, so when my friends over at Therapy Box asked me to review one of their apps for Speech Therapy I just couldn't say no. It's a perfect app for us speechies as we head into a few months of summer fun, since I personally love summer time to really focus on categorization skills. These are some of the targeted language skills that are great for my summer groups.

Sort This Out Pack is an app which is designed to help work on children's categorization skills. Apps for categories are always a handy addition to any therapist's toolbox, since not only do they work on categorization skills, they also expand receptive and expressive vocabulary. This colorful, and interactive app has a train theme (Who doesn't love trains?) where the train pulls into various stations; the beach, city, zoo, and theme park (The zoo animals are the cutest)

After a truck unloads the cargo boxes at each station, the train enters for collection, and the goal is to sort the items into two categories, which make up the carriages on the train. What I really like about this app is that you can customize your categories in the "Settings" panel, and chose what comes at each station. The set categories are ocean, weather, fruit, vegetables, animals, transport, kitchen, bathroom, bedroom, tools, shapes, drinks, sports, body parts, plants, toys, cleaning, music, school, house, insects. Plus you have the option of adding your own categories using your personal photos. There is also a button to record your own voice to label each photo.

Another useful feature that can be customized when interacting with this app is the type of prompts provided. You can turn on auditory or written cues to add support where necessary.

I've been playing so far in "errorless" mode, where if you drop an item into the wrong carriage it will bounce back to the bottom of the screen to let you know that it doesn't belong there. However, there is also the option to turn this off, and then a blue symbol will appear to show which ones do not belong in that category.

At the end when all the items are in their correct categories, players are treated to a fireworks display and a "well done" from the conductor as the train moves off to the next station.

There is also a "results" page, which allows you to email results from each station for your personal records.

I've really been enjoying using this app so far, and it has been well received by the little ones in my practice. They love filling up the train, and I've also transferred it to my Thomas train set activity which allows us to sort items around the clinic.

As a therapist what I would suggest to the developers is the ability to add more categories. This way, as children master this level there is the opportunity to have 3 or 4 categories at one station, to make it more challenging.

If you think that this app sounds like it's for you, you can pick it up here on the iTunes store.

Our lovely friends at Therapy Box were kind enough to provide a copy for me to give away. You can enter below with Rafflecopter. The winner will be announced next Tuesday!

*UPDATE* We have a winner!! Congrats to Kathleen for winning a copy of Sort This Out Pack App. I hope you enjoy using it in therapy!

Tuesday, March 24, 2015

For these moments when my mind rambles into a Facebook post, and I think to myself...."Hey that's a blog post right there...."

Quick(ish) post between office work tonight, as I reflect on my day, and some of the 'awesomeness' that was created today in therapy (like some good old chocolate chip cookies....but I digress...). Today made me think about how many accommodations we as therapists make for our clients within the clinic setting. We try to present 'real life' scenarios that in reality are so far from real life....since sometimes without even realizing it we anticipate the difficulties a client may have, and make certain accommodations, provide the supports to suit. It's only when we place them in real world, true functional situations, that we realize how tough it really is in the world. I see this particularly with my patients with aphasia. Today for example we worked on a goal of calling places to find out certain types of info (mainly as it relates to numbers, since this is a goal). We practiced in a 'role play' first then made the calls, and it was only then that I realized how much I was, slowing down, and emphasizing the target information that she needed to find out. I also was more aware of how quickly people in customer service speak, and rattle off numbers (Not even mentioning factors like background noise etc.). Anyway Kudos to the persons at the companies I called today! They didn't have a clue that this was a therapy exercise, nor that the person not the other line had suffered a stroke, but still remained patient, slowed when they realized they weren't being understood, and made sure they clarified all the relevant information. #foodforthought

Wednesday, November 5, 2014

Today, I had the pleasure of hosting my first Aphasia group, with two young ladies who had suffered from strokes within the past few months. They both have moderate aphasia, with only mild comprehension deficits, nonfluent speech, difficulty with confrontation naming, and significant word finding difficulties.

This was the first time they had ever met, and you could tell they were both quite nervous. However, as we were doing the icebreaker activity, when one started to talk, the other suddenly exclaimed "She talks like me!!!" and they both burst into giggles. That was all the icebreaker they needed. They had a lovely session, where they encouraged each other, helped cue each other (I was like who's the therapist here now?), gave high fives, and even ganged up on me. It was so good to have that support of someone who was experiencing the same difficulties, who could be patient while waiting for them to get out the right words, because they knew the frustration of knowing what to say, but just not being able to get those words out. Hearing things like "It's ok I have that problem too," "Come on, you can do it," "Don't give up," made me so proud of these two. We were able to do so much more than in an individual session, for example individual therapy sessions are usually based on answering questions, and today I was able to tap into difficulties/strengths in asking questions. By the end of the session they had created a new friendship, made me take their photo together, and exchanged whatsapp information to maintain contact. It was such a blessing to be able to not only help them regain their language skills, but also to provide for them the support of another person who truly understands what they are going through. I'd recommend for any therapist to host an aphasia group and see the impact it has on your clients, and also on you as a professional, and a person.

Session Format:

1. Icebreaker- Participants were required to take turns asking each other and asking questions about themselves. Questions chosen ranged from "what is your name?" to "Do you have a boyfriend?". (They chose the questions not me).

2. How do I feel when….? (Talking about the impact of their stroke, how it has affected their lives)

3. Guessing game- Used functional pictures from the LARK and played a game where one had to use the strategies they have been learning in therapy to describe a picture of an object (e.g. what does it look like, what is it used for etc.), and the other person guess what it was.

Tuesday, October 29, 2013

Haven't been here in forever. However a post I made on fb today gave me the idea to do quick posts of things I'm doing or seeing in therapy. Will try that. I'm on instagram as well these days showing off my speechie life as @speechreka. There are also some fashion, photography and posts of my general day in there (Hey I am a real person), so you can weed through those. Here's my speech musing today:

I had long convo with an SLP in the USA who called me to get some therapy ideas for her little ones. When chatting with her it made me think about the artic/phono targets that many of us choose for our little ones, particularly those with motor planning difficulties or low tone. When moving up to 2 syllable words many of the popular workbooks give an interesting list of words such as cowboy, pizza etc. which need wider phonemic repertoire and greater motor sequencing ability to produce. I prefer to start with nice reduplicated bilabials (which also have good functional relevance language wise) like bye bye, mummy, bubble, boo-boo, puppy, baby, and include happy, apple, open. I find littles with Down Syndrome find it more challenging to produce multisyllabic words, and expand their utterances in general. These words come in quite handy for this and can be used to build a range of semantic functions (bye-bye baby). What say you speechies?